Today, people are increasingly looking for more information online. Due to this increase, online information retrieval systems have to provide the most current content in order to be and stay competitive. In order to stay current, an online information retrieval system must be able to continuously load new documents quickly and efficiently onto the system. Currently, U.S. Pat. No. 7,480,644 addresses the problem of relying on a single server when loading documents onto a database associated with an online information retrieval system. The '644 patent discloses utilizing distributed load domains to organize and coordinate operation of multiple load servers to meet load capacity needs of a set of one or more databases/collections. In addition, two or more load monitor servers not only monitor and ensure completion of load tasks in individual load servers, but also provide for one load monitor to monitor performance of another. The '644 patent is directed toward large document loads that can take several minutes to complete (for example, 200,000 documents could take up to an hour to complete). However, even smaller document loads (1-3 documents) could take in the high tens of seconds (for example 30-40 seconds) to complete.
Unfortunately, the '644 patent does not address the problem of being able to load continuously (i.e. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). The multiple load servers reside within one geographical location (i.e. data center). In many instances, a malfunction or crash within that data center necessitates the reloading of the entire quantity of data. In addition, the solution in the '644 patent only allows a database/collection to receive one load at a time (i.e. the load may contain several documents or one document). This “one at a time” loading process extends the time it takes to load documents. Consequently, the lack of continuousness and time considerations could delay access, by a user or subscriber, to the new documents. This is especially critical if documents are time-sensitive and need to be loaded in the quickest time frame possible.
Accordingly, the inventors have recognized additional improvements in loading databases/collections of online information retrieval system.